Arthur was
inside. Then he softly locked the door, the key of which he had
appropriated immediately after supper, and propped shut the heavy
wooden shutter of the window.
"No dramatic escapes in ours, thank you!" he muttered. He drew back and
surveyed his work with satisfaction. "Come on, boys, let's turn in.
To-morrow we slave."
CHAPTER XXI
THE LAND OF VISIONS
Although he had retired so early, and in so exhausted a condition,
Bennington de Laney could not sleep. He had taken a slight fever, and
the wound in his shoulder was stiff and painful. For hours on end he
lay flat on his back, staring at the dim illuminations of the windows
and listening to the faint out-of-door noises or the sharper borings of
insects in the logs of the structure. His mind was not active. He lay
in a semi-torpor, whose most vivid consciousness was that of mental
discomfort and the interminability of time.
The events of the day rose up before him, but he seemed to loathe them
merely because they had been of so active a character, and now he could
not bear to have his brain teased even with their impalpable shadow.
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